Gala Event at Holy Mother Public Relations had us Praying for the End of Time.
by St. Francis DeSales

To mark the end of the thirteenth Ba’k’tun Holy Mother Public Relations Inc. hosted their first annual End of Existence Gala in the circular Star and Garter Ballroom: the dazzling center found everywhere in the Holy Mother PR Empyrean building whose circumference appears to be nowhere and why am I telling you about the room? I hate duplicity as I hate death, so I’m talking about crap nobody cares about because frankly I want to bury my real feelings about this shitshow of an event somewhere after the first couple of lines to ensure that our Holy Blessed and Most Exalted Mother Mary will have passed out before she gets to the sentence where I call her the booze soaked love child of Courtney Love and a pile of vomit. There, I said it. As I have prior experience covering the various travesties parties Holy Mother PR has thrown in the past to provide Mary with fresh drinking companions celebrate Mary’s glory I knew to race past the red carpet and find Her Shitfacedness our Holy Lush before she passes out in the men’s urinals. A pity too as I had only a glance at Jesus gingerly exiting his limo with his babyclothes up to one side. I was dying to find out was he circumcised but I had bigger fish to fry as apparently did the “ladies” of the Tranquila Convent who catered this stinker of a party with what can only be an ironically inspired all seafood menu. Ghastly. Everything fried in butter: they love buttering themselves in and out, though to their credit they served a potent egg nog which Sister Mary Peter described as eggs beaten up with marsala. One taste of that and I knew why I was far too late to interview Mary. Though, with all the optimism of a rookie I pressed on, seeking her out in all her usual puking places: closets and behind statues, but I could not find Her Drunkenness anywhere and I stopped looking when I saw the out of order sign on the men’s lavatory door. Alas, Mary was already face down in a pool of her own vomit and piss. I’d say they ought to dedicate the urinals in Her Holy Name but in that case they’d probably throw another one of these disastrous events to mark the occasion and I’d have to cover it. I was late for Mary but I found myself just in time and unfortunately perfectly placed for the unveiling of Negative Destiny by new sculptor Martha. While some might try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own filth, Martha has tried the same treatment on The Annunciation, and Negative Destiny comes off as a rather fleshy cross between The Annunciation and The Incarnation. But with more slime. This mixed media piece is curious the way it’s made and I asked Martha what are all those veins and things but I won’t reveal her answer. Trust me, it is better not to know. Martha’s sculpture managed to renew my faith in the end of the world, and indeed to wish it had come before Martha had ever been born. I don’t want to say that it is bad, not at all. It succeeds gloriously in finding new ways to suck. O lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all just to distract myself and indeed to save some of the others: anything to tear my ruined eyes from that ugly quivering disgusting thing placed up there like any other statue in a museum, and the crap sculpture she had just unveiled. Martha ought to take a good look at herself but a mirror never gives you the expression. My advice to you Martha: check herself into the Tranquilla convent, they’ll take anybody.

A circle is a circle because it is not a square. A square is a square because it is not a circle. Well now duh. So why do it? Why would anybody for any reason (with any reason) want to square the circle? Why take the one (let’s say the square: all pointed and anchored, so angular, and such fixity (a place for everything and everything in its place) such certainty) and try to make it anything but what it is? it’s good the way it is. Leave it alone. Who needs a turning of this into that when you already have both this and that. And look at that that: smooth and continuous. arcing around, no beginning no end: doesn’t know if it is coming or going, really, and frankly doesn’t care. You can’t pin that down: where to put the pin? Tell me precisely where. Go ahead. Like any coastline regardless of adjacent ocean, the closer you get, the more places for pinning. With circles its turtles all the way down. You would think the square would have no problem becoming a circle, it’s made of such nice round numbers, but sister circle is just so damn big, no matter how small she is. The maddening thing about her is that she flaunts her shape at us no matter how we want to see her. Looks like the perfect place for keeping things in. But how can such a perfect container, (with all the appearance of finite enclosure) harbor such infinities beyond reason? In becomes out. Where does she put it all? No wonder people behave like such lunatics trying to fit their square pegs into her round holes. This is now that, ta daaa! Imagine. And why? Once that’s done there’d be nothing left for them to do. Nothing left for anybody to do. What else could there possibly be? You’re done. You’ve just made the independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. You can go ahead now and buy your own island, no problem, and get down to watching the money riding in with the waves. Would be nice. It could be an art, even, cultivating the purest of possible devotions to one’s own pleasure. Could do anything. Arrange beehives according to humane principles, and the like. Join capital with opportunity and the thing required is done. Maybe even start my own religion. The Holy Church of the Sacred Squircle. No. Don’t like the holy church part. Squirclism. That’s better. I like that much better.

The Virgin Mary, Holy Virgin of Virgins, Mother Most Pure, Mother Most Chaste, Mother Inviolate, Mother Undefiled, Virgin Most Prudent, Virgin Most Venerable, Virgin Most Renowned, Virgin Most Powerful, Virgin Most Merciful, Virgin Most Faithful, Queen of Virgins, Queen Who has Never Known the Touch of Man. Never. Also, Martha, Jesus, and Gabriel.

Agenda:

1. Discuss the commission of a hyperrealistic sculpture of the Immaculate Conception to be created by Martha, a woman of no independent means, currently residing in the third floor copy room of the Empyrean building, Holy Mother Public Relations.

2. Get Martha off our hands. No offense Martha.

Discussion:

1. With this sculpture Mary wants to express in the most more-than-realistic way possible, the experience she felt deep within her body, a pounding fullness of infinite size deep within her most finite space burning hot and dripping wet. Mary very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity, expressed her gratitude to Gabriel for delivering God’s message with such gratifying skill and finesse. Gabriel expressed to Mary that the pleasure was all his and indeed, worth repeating. Martha suggested Mary and Gabriel get a room.

2. Jesus proposed adjourning the meeting. And also, if God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, the moment Mom had knowledge of Dad might be expressed as an inscribed polygon within the sphere that grows more like a circle the more angles it has. Yet even though the multiplication of its angles be infinite, nothing will make the polygon equal the sphere unless the polygon is resolved into identity with the sphere. Martha asked so now she’s expected to enclose infinity within a finite space. It was really more of a statement than a question. Mary said yes, square the circle.

3. Jesus stated that the whole problem in planning an end of the world (particularly the end of history) sculpture, is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending.

2. Mary stated the sculpture should be ready for the perceived if not actual cessation of the existence of temporality currently scheduled for this coming December 21st, though the date might be fudged a little.

3. Joseph will check Mary’s schedule and compile a list of possible alternate dates for the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.

4. Because Jesus is so damn linear, he will provide us with an end of the world, despite mathematical appearances that there will be no end because we are already in an excess of ends: the transfinite. And in an exceeding of finalities: transfinality.

5. Mary wants the sculpture to be both fascinating and spiritually enthralling, and as we have no vision of final conditions, it must portray an image of negative destiny in a kind of a retrospective arrangement. Also, Mary wishes to see herself as others see her.

6. Martha requires the following materials: two brushes (one green one maroon) and one thousand one hundred thirty two sheets of tissue paper.

Scene: [An endlessly large room once belonging to to all the infinite possibilities but now cavernously empty save for Caesar who is curled up on the floor patting his knife wounds with smooth caresses.]

Time: [On the god mic, sotto voce] Are you ready to listen?

Caesar: What’s the point?

Time: You must stop looking at the point of everything. This particular version of you has no point. Or rather, you have many points. You are legion.

Caesar: Blah blah blah.

Time: You’re tired, you’re not taking it in. Maybe some solid food? I’m a stickler for solid food. Here. [A cup of coffee appears on the floor next to Caesar. It’s over-roasted, must be Starbucks.] Now Caesar, honey, you do know that history is a tale like any other too often heard. But darling, your history, your place in Roman history, is only one manifestation of infinite possibilities. You have ousted all the others and now here we are, at a standstill until you can accept it. You are at a crucial point.

Caesar: But if I have other selves, some which did not die, then they are not to be thought away.

Time: They are, but not by you. You occupy a non-dimensional point, the stilled eternity. Move to become a line, then a plane, then a tetrahedron and you’ll gain some perspective. Trust me on this one. Your other selves did.

Caesar: I refuse to accept other selves.

Time: They are the possibilities you have ousted. You did that. Get used to it. You think you can square the circle lying there in a puddle of yourself? Stand up, man, form a line. Until then you are both center and circumference. Unless you straighten up beyond this particular singularity, that thing you call “self” to which you stubbornly cling, sweetie love, you will understand nothing, and only nothing.

Think back. Remember. I am almosting it. I spent those summer months, the first ones after, with circles and squares. As one would. It’s natural. Look at that circle there. You see it? A reflection of your eye looking at me. I’ll reflect mine back to you in case you need, no? Fine then. So beautiful your circle. A circle is a circle because it is not a square. A square is a square because it is not a circle. The perfect square lacks corners, but I get ahead of myself. But I can’t get ahead of myself, that’s my predicament. Nor can I get behind myself either, damn it. But let’s return to the roundness, the fullness of your circle. All points of your circumference are equal from your center. Such pretty, such sublime perfection. Such infinity. Such simultaneity of number. Ba! Look at that square, now, ugly thing. In front of you, see it? Around where you stare. You should blink more, this is very bad for your eyes holding them open like that. Blink. Now see that ugly square binding your reflection. My reflection back. Corners. Angles. Limited. Linear. Like me. Ba, this has been an unusually fatiguing day. And this day, like any other day is this day now. Here. Now. Endlessly now. Nothing but now, only now forever and always now. I know for you it is different. I see it is different from here. Good Christ you can see it from space, but for me, when I look at myself I see only this and no other then. When? I exist between before and after in a durationless instant, and I unite them. Before and after exist because of me. You exist because of me. But I heard once of a way, a secret way. Closer, I’ll tell you. If the square married the circle, yes? You see it? Forgive the allegorical language but this is top secret understand. If the square married the circle they would mate, yes, and be united. Unified. If the perfect square lacked corners and if the circle had rationality. Think of the implications! Imagine what it could mean! The eternal and the temporal entwining. Infinity plunging into linearity. We can do it. So gently, so carefully. This is virgin territory. The past that was can be caressed into the now. And the future that beckons, we shall be the ones saying come hither sweet little thing you are. Aren’t you curious? Nobody’s looking baby love, we can do it. The cause is sacred. Stop. You don’t agree, do you. You think I’m wasting time. But the quadrature of the circle is all I have left, don’t you see? I live in temporal succession and this compounds my grief. You think it’s so easy to? You. Your center is everywhere and your circumference is nowhere. Ba. When have you ever needed to resurrect anything? Simultaneity. You are nothing. Leave me. Sorrow lives only in linearity; what do you know of my troubles? Now go.

If you do indeed find yourself put in a pod, and wish to remove the djinn from the bottle, focus your spagyric efforts within the first three months, keeping your work to the proper day of the week and planetary hour. Solve et coagula, for a successful outcome so to speak. that is to say one must dissolve the fix and fix the volatile. Begin with enough marjoram, gathered when just coming into flower. Only 2% of the plant is volatile oil, so gather as much of it as you are able, in your condition. Grind it up as finely as you can and steep it in warm brandy for two weeks, to bring out the essential oils. Filter it. Keep the brandy and the macerated marjoram. Next, separate the essential and the subtle from the inessential and the gross. Dry the remaining plant matter and burn it to ashes. Mix the ashes in a pot with 20 times their volume of rain water. Boil for 20 minutes then filter it. Evaporate the remaining liquid until it calcinates in the pan. Keep it in your pan at 500 degrees for several hours. Cool it and dissolve it in filtered rainwater. Repeat the calcination at least twice more until you are left with a chalky white substance in crystalline form, the Marjoram’s volatile salt. You have now in your possession the bridge between plant and mineral, the essential component of your upcoming purge. Wait for the waxing moon and spread it on plates. leave the plates outside overnight, raised off the ground. Go to bed and allow in your house rest to reign, as the time’s occasion is most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred. At sunrise collect the liquid and whatever has not yet dissolved, avoiding contact of it with skin or metal. This is the marjoram’s angel water. Distill it until the salts are dry, and save in a dark glass jar. Now you are ready to separate the false from the true. Gather your angel water, the salts of marjoram, fresh marjoram, and the brandy infused with marjoram’s essential oils (good God you didn’t throw that away!). Boil water and make an infusion with the fresh marjoram, allowing it to steep for at least 10 minutes. While waiting, pour the brandy into a glass and mix into it the salts of marjoram. Pour the angel water into a third glass. Now in silence, hist! All three cups you must straightways now attack. Staboo. Stabella. Feel her approach. Lilith, those broad wings. Listen, she is all eyes. Swallow. Drink. Focus all your soul, every pit of every little apart of your self that ever wanted anything before wants now to want. Your truth centers both your speech and your belief. You are a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. Come on baby girl, chug a lug. There you go. Take a breath. That which never dies and that which dies are only the reflected light of that idea which love with love begets. Keep sipping now. Just nice sips. And put all your everything you’ve got into your womb. There now Staboo, Stabella’s here. The closer of openings, yes, she makes possible the best of all possibilities. Hello Lilith. You feel it go now and look. Look under her feathers, see that? Right there. That. See it? The living light that pours out so from its bright source. Notice that it does not dis-one itself from love or from the love that enthreed itself with them. Ok baby, you ok? Go clean up now, there you go.

There was no stopping her. He died on his eleventh day, dead of winter, and he was getting cold. So tiny. So small. A week and a half old, just changed enough from his first moments to start to look like her and to start to look like me. It was a start. Eleventh day. Eleven. Elf. Elfin boy he’d have been now. Sweet eleven. She measured him and got out her best wool she had been saving. Measured him around. Circled his little body. Cannot make a circle without eleven. Measure a circle seven across and it will measure eleven halfway around. Seven and eleven, a thread between square and circle. Square the circle and maybe. Maybe eternity. Find him there. She orbited around him as he cooled. She is the moon and while she knit he was her whole world. She orbited and he cooled in 3:11 ratios. Moon:Earth, he took on enormous proportions but she would knit for him. She had wool and time had stopped. Oh the ground. The Earth is cold in winter and his sweet little body was cooling. Pull the moon to the earth. Pull her close, the three to the eleven. Now circle them. I circled them. I circled them in radii of seven. Our circumference was 44, the same as the perimeter of a square around Rudy, named for my self-murdered father, my whole world. She knit, I circled for the length of his body cooling. She measured. She chose her needles and her best wool she had been saving. Soft, no itch, 4 ply dk merino. And she swatched. She measured. She cast on 32 stitches and knit two rows. Then she knit 2 * yfd k2tog, to end k1. Next row K. The next row she k2 * and she made 1 in the next of each stitch to the last k3. Next row K. Next row K3, P to last 3 then K. He cooled, she knit in patterns: K4 *k1B k1 to last 3 sts k3, next row k, k5 k1B *k1 k1b to last 5 sts k5, next row k and she continued for five inches. Then she k6 k2 tog k1 to the last 5 sts k5. I circled. I squared. She k3 P to last 3 K3. I circled. She K3 yfd K2 tog to last 2 sts K2. I squared. K3 P to last 3 K3. He cooled. The perfect square lacks corners. She K2 tog, knit in pattern to the last 4 sts and she k 2tog twice. Then a row of K she knit. She knit for two more inches. The wrong side facing, all wrong, k to the middle, k 2 tog twice, k to the end. The next wrong row she did it again. And the next wrong row she did it again. One last row in pattern. Last time. Then our sweet, our little, our baby love. We placed him inside. We put in our kisses, warm to cold. Weeny hands. Smallest love. Our sweet circle. Our whole world. Then the seam. She grafted 32 stitches and snipped the yarn with her teeth. Basta. Enough.

Ok, stoop down here. Don’t mind me, just picking up these racing forms. Figure this out on my own. La la la. So what do we have. Sceptre 5 to 4, Zinfandel 7 to 4, Maximum II 10 to 1. Those are the most likely. Will include least likely, Throwaway 20 to 1 for a control. A throwaway. So. Ok. Draw a circle, homogeneous non-differentiated space. Divide into duality in order to create. Division within unity. Now. Center is O and radius OA=1. Diameters AA’ and BB’ at right angles and with centers on diameter BB’ draw two circles. Ok, each with a radius half that of original circle. Yup. From point A swing an arc NM tangent to circumferences of the two inner circles. Repeat from point A’. Construct square ACB’O from the radius of the original circle. That’s the racetrack. Good. Ok. The arc of the semi-diagonal of the square and the radius AE of the arc NEM is Φ and the arcs NEM and NDM divide the radii AO and A’O into the golden division of 1/Φ and 1/Φ2. Hum. Paradox now. Divide a circle into a yin yang like that and the circumferences of the inner circles are equal to that of the larger circle but the area within them is only half that of the original circle. One has become two. So Zinfandel? Not Maximum II. That seems out. A unity becomes a duality. Homogeneity becomes polarized. Separated. Jockey falls off? Which one? Mutually repellent forms arise from a common source. Well that’s life. And that sounds like Zinfandel to me. The pentahedron to the cube, the heptahedron to the cube, the decahedron to the unity. The icosahedron to the unity. Hm. So now, construct a square equal in area to the original circle. If only pi were 3.17, then it would be Maximum II and what a payoff! But have to base this on reality. So. So. Φ2= 1+r2 and r = √Φ-1 and r = √Φ and the circumference equals 2∏√Φ with √Φ=1.272. . . and ∏=three point one four one five nine do da do da, so, hm. If the perimeter of the square is approximately 8. But I don’t want approximates. Then, well. This isn’t very mathematically exact. A bit like throwing money into a hurricane. But it looks like Sceptre. That’s just where it’s shaking out. I can feel it in the numbers. My money, all of it, on Scepter. Respect. A dead cert.